Kooyonga was laid out on scrubland between the city of Adelaide and South Australia’s coastline in the 1920s by W.H. Rymill who acted as proprietor and architect. Rymill has previously been very influential at Royal Adelaide and although Kooyonga was not designed by Alison, Colt or MacKenzie, its style is firmly from that special decade of course design squeezed between the Great War and the Crash of 1929.

Kooyonga was named by Rymill himself after a house he constructed by the beach under his mistaken belief that the word was aboriginal and meant ‘plenty sand, plenty water’. The primary influence here is sand. The club has done a very good job in preserving the look and feel of Rymill’s original bunkers; the more irregular shaped hazards are more recent additions. Characteristic of the 1920s designs are the bunker faces that ‘sit up’ and present themselves to the golfer with a much more pronounced lip than you ever see on modern courses. As a consequence, the hazard is both more visible from the tee or the fairway and some degrees more penal when you find yourself in them. The contents of the bunkers is largely made up of the sandy belt of natural soil a common feature in the Sandbelt.

Kooyonga is one of the most interesting of Australia’s classic golf courses and knocks most modern courses into a cocked hat.

The above passage on Kooyonga Golf Club is an extract from The Finest Golf Courses of Asia and Australasia by James Spence. Reproduced with kind permission.

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Reviews for Kooyonga

Average Reviewers Score:

Description: Kooyonga Golf Club is one of the most interesting of Australia’s classic golf courses and it knocks most modern layouts into a cocked hat.Written by:Top100 Aggregated RatingRating:7.8
out of 10
Reviews: 6

Chris Hanson

March 24, 2020

I love Kooyonga. It's a treat to see and a treat to play. Beautiful fairways, arresting bunkers, and superbly undulating greens - all in proportion. It's a perfect size for the land as well as being entirely individual with so many different holes with their own personality. Take me back anytime.

Today I had the pleasure of playing the outstanding course in Adelaide. It is a short course at only 5900m but it bears its teeth around the greens with lots of bunkers and large undulating greens. Well worth a visit to this Herbert Rymill layout along with the other great courses in Adelaide.

I was fortunate enough to play the marvellous Kooyonga GC on the "Redbelt" here in Adelaide, South Australia. Before playing there, many golfing tragic's mentioned I should play it last out of the big four because it was the best in S.A. I can see now upon reflection what they mean as it is the best, but is very closely followed by Royal Adelaide in my humble opinion. It's a wonderful example of a championship course in a rich sandy area only 15 from the Adelaide CBD. Undulating fairways, some terrific blind driving holes, well protected greens make for accurate drives required for best entry, and skilled wedge shots to well contoured greens that were a smig slow at the moment in my opinion. Big thanks must go out to Will Toleman also from the Pro Shop who really looked after me before, and helped afterwards! Great restaurant and bar for all your 19th hole needs!

H.L. 'Cargie' Rymill was a keen golfer and student of the game. He had a huge impact on the game he loved and left a lasting legacy seen to this day in the iconic courses he touched in Adelaide.

Rymill had a significant role in developing Royal Adelaide, Glenelg, The Grange, and Kooyonga as well as other courses in Sth Australia. Although he was a long-term member at Royal Adelaide it is Kooyonga that will be remembered as his crowning achievement because he found the land, conceived the project, gather the backers, designed the course, and continued overseeing the development of the course and club for many years.

Kooyonga GC was founded by Rymill when he spotted the land from a tram in 1922, and recognised the potential immediately. By 1924 he had 18 holes in play over land that included some delightful dunesland and some flatter marsh type terrain.

Kooyonga is surrounded by residences on all boundaries, and cannot easily extend its course to meet the length expectations for courses hosting national events. But such is the quality of the course that conversion of some of the shorter par 5's to par 4's to create a par 70 course would make this a fine test worthy of an another Australian Open.

Kooyonga is an intriguing course. Most of the course is set in a rolling dunescape, now framed by gum trees and other natives planted by Rymill and his team.

The routing is unusual in that the course opens with consecutive par 5's, and has two par 3's one after the other at holes 14 & 15. To me that speaks of a designer who works with the land, does not impose his will upon it.

Overall I rate Kooyonga as one of the classier courses in Australia. It would be a wonderful members course. It is not overly long, but has plenty of variety, constantly asks the golfer to make decisions, is beautifully maintained, and great fun to play.

Kooyonga is my favourite course in Adelaide and I played several times as a reciprocal, including once with the club captain just before the Ford Open (later called the Jacobs Creek open). My only pity moving overseas was giving up the chance to become a member. The first (par 5) is open and a real birdie chance. The second (also par 5) is a tougher proposition as the tress and rough squeeze the landing area and shot to the green. I think there is a good variety of holes, with some long par 4s and interesting par 3s (I chipped in for birdie two evenings running on 14) and while I'm no golf course architect, I find the other review comments based upon my rounds there to be harsh, but maybe the character of the course has really altered since I played there. VBased upon my rounds there, I can recommend playing a round.

Kooyonga is not quite the course it once was and although this is a UK website I’m surprised nobody has yet posted a review for this once stellar Aussie course. Kooyonga was once a championship venue and Peter Thomson won the Australian Open here in the 1970s now it’s caught between the two stools of classic and modern. The bunkers are neither fish nor fowl and require a more coherent look and feel and the club need to decide whether they want a 21st century championship course or a historical classic. The work that Hawtree performed in 2008 has not improved matters but simply drawn attention to Kooyonga’s inconsistencies. Kooyonga could have been a showcase for Cargie, who did more for golf in Adelaide than just about any other person, but the club has dithered around too much and are now in danger of destroying a national treasure in favour of succumbing to modernity. I love this piece of history and it deserves so much more TLC. Niall.